As the corporate media covers every move made by Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney and Democratic incumbent Barack Obama, we go to Baltimore to cover the Green Party 2012 National Convention. “We need big solutions, you know, not solutions around the margins. We really need to end unemployment, we need to put 25 million people back to work with good paying jobs,” says presumptive presidential nominee Dr. Jill Stein, who is running on a platform called “the Green New Deal” that emphasizes economic justice, tough financial regulation, the repeal of Citizens United and a transition to a “green economy.” The Green Party expects to be on the 2012 ballot in at least 45 states and plans to spend approximately $1 million on its campaign. Stein is the party’s first candidate to independently qualify for federal matching funds, a milestone for this 11-year-old third party.

Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program sees one major flaw in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act: It did not go far enough. The only solution, Flowers argues in this conversation with Laura Flanders, is to push for universal healthcare by expanding medicare so that it covers all Americans.